Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [129]
So long, the hallway went on and on and there were moans coming from behind all those doors, people in pain, but there were no nurses, no doctors, no one at all. She knew the rooms were empty, she’d looked into all of them, yet the moans grew louder and louder.
Where was her mother? She called out for her, then she started running down the corridor, screaming her mother’s name. The moans from those empty rooms grew louder and louder until—
“Hello, Rebecca.”
TWENTY-NINE
Becca lurched up in bed, sweaty, breathing hard, her heart pounding. No, it wasn’t her mother, no, it was someone else.
Finally he was here. He’d come to her first, not to her father. A surprise, but not a big one, at least to her. She lay very still, gathering herself, her control, her focus.
“Hello, Rebecca,” he said again, this time he was even closer to her face, nearly touching her.
“You can’t be here,” she said aloud. He’d gotten past everyone, but again, that didn’t overly surprise her. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d gotten both the house plans and the security system plans. And now he wasn’t even six inches from her.
“Of course I can be here. I can be anywhere I want. I’m a cloud of smoke, a sliding shadow, a glimmer of light. I like how frightened you are. Just listen to you, your voice is even trembling with fear. Yes, I like that. Now, you even try to move and I will, very simply, cut your skinny little throat.”
She felt the razor-sharp blade against the front of her neck, pressing in ever so slightly.
“We knew you would come,” she said.
He laughed quietly, now not even an inch from her ear. She felt his hot breath touch her skin. “Of course you knew I’d find you. I can do anything. Your father is so stupid, Rebecca. I’ve always known it, always, and now I’ve proved it the final time. I figured out how to find his lair, and poof—like shimmering smoke—I’m here. You and your bastard father lose now. Soon, you and I are going down the hall to his bedroom. I want him to wake up with me standing over him, you in front of me, a knife digging into your neck. Even with those hotshot FBI guards he’s got positioned all around this house, I got through with little effort. There’s this great big oak tree that comes almost to the roof of the house. Just a little jump, not more than six feet, and I was on the roof, and then it was easy to pry open that trapdoor into the attic. I took care of the security alarm up there, cut it off for all of the upstairs. No one saw me. It’s nice and dark tonight. Stupid, all of you are stupid. Now, get up.”
She did as he said. She felt calm. He kept her very close, the knife across her neck as he opened her bedroom door and eased her out into the hallway. “The last door down on the right,” he said. “Keep walking and keep quiet, Rebecca.”
It was nearly one o’clock in the morning; Becca saw the time on the old grandfather clock that sat in its niche in the corridor.
“Open the door,” he said against her ear, “slowly, quietly. That’s right.”
Her father’s bedroom door opened without a sound. There was a night-light on in the connecting bathroom off to the left. All the draperies were open, beams of the scant moonlight coming in through the balcony windows. There was no movement on the bed.
“Wake up, you butcher,” he said, one eye on the balcony windows.
There was still no movement on the bed.
She heard his breathing quicken, felt the knife move slightly against her neck. “No, you don’t move, Rebecca. One little slice and your blood will spew like a fountain all over the floor.” Suddenly, he said, nearly a yell, “Thomas Matlock! Where are you?”
“I’m right here, Krimakov.”
He whirled Becca around, facing Thomas, who was standing, fully dressed, in the lighted doorway of the bathroom, his arms crossed over his chest.
“It’s about time you got here,” Thomas said easily, his eyes on the knife that was pressing into Becca’s neck. “Don’t hurt her. We’ve been waiting for you. I was starting to believe you’d lost your nerve, that you’d gotten too scared, that you